The Immigration Executive Order: What's Really In It

Governor Donald Carcieri's executive order concerning illegal immigration basically has two sections, a set of provisions that apply to the state government's hiring procedures, and a set of provisions that apply to law enforcement.

The first three provisions apply to state government; the first two specifically to hiring…

1. The Department of Administration shall register and use the federal government’s E-Verify program to electronically verify the employment eligibility of new hires in the Executive Branch and the validity of their Social Security numbers to ensure that all employees of the Executive Branch are legally eligible to be employed in the United States and take appropriate action against those that are not eligible for employment, consistent with federal and state law. For purposes of this Order, the Executive Branch of government is considered to be all agencies and departments in the Executive Branch, excluding the offices of general officers, said officers being the Department of Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, and General Treasurer.

2. The Department of Administration shall require that all persons and businesses, including grantees, contractors and their subcontractors and vendors doing business with the State of Rhode Island also register with and utilize the services of the E-Verify program to ensure compliance with federal and state law.

I'll have a bit more to say about these provisions in an upcoming post.

Provision 3 requires the state to notify victims of identity theft discovered by enforcement of provisions 1 and 2 that a crime has been perpetrated against them…

3. The Directors of each department and state agency in the Executive Branch shall attempt to notify any person whose identity was stolen or otherwise improperly used by any person in order receive any benefit, including but not limited to child care, health care, any government issued identification card, including driver’s license and non-driver’s license identification, welfare or employment.

Do progessive leaders like Lt. Governor Elizabeth Roberts and Reverend Eliseo Nogueras really object to letting people who have had their identities stolen know about it as soon as possible?

Objections to this portion of the executive order provide some fascinating (though unintended) insight into the progressive mindset. Rhode Island's progressives don't seem to have any room in their hearts and minds for regular, law-abiding citizens who become the victims of crimes through no fault of their own. They've decided that the job of government is to take care of special interests and identity politics groups, whatever the cost to everyone else. Crime victims don't rate as enough of a special interest to merit any attention, so, according to the Lieutenant Governor and other progressives who want the entire executive order repealed, if you're a victim of identity theft, you are own your own; government has more important things to do than helping protect you from crimes.

Provisions 4 through 7 in the executive order refer specifically to the law-enforcing branches of government, the state police and department of corrections. Provision 4 authorizes training for the state police for immigration-related matters…

4. The Rhode Island State Police, pursuant to the authority set forth in Section 287(g) of IIRAIRA and INA, shall work to secure a MOA with ICE to receive training necessary to enable them to assist ICE personnel in the enforcement of federal immigration laws.

Provision 5 provides for training for corrections personnel, and for corrections personnel to work under the joint supervision of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement...

5. The Department of Corrections shall also work with ICE officials to secure an MOA that will define the scope of state correctional personnel authority to perform certain immigration law enforcement functions which shall be subject to the cross-supervision of ICE and permit certain correctional personnel to complete appropriate training and function under the supervision of sworn ICE officers to combat illegal immigration issues at the Adult Correctional Institution, consistent with federal and state law.

So far, there's nothing more than here than facilitating inter-agency co-operation to enforce existing law under the jurisdiction of ICE. If ICE asks for help, the Governor wants state law enforcement officials to have the proper training to provide it. Isn't proper training the best way to reduce the excesses of so-called "profiling" that progressives fret about?

Provision 6 will probably become the most controversial section…

6. It is urged that all law enforcement officials, including state and local law enforcement agencies take steps to support the enforcement of federal immigration laws by investigating and determining the immigration status of all non-citizens taken into custody, incarcerated, or under investigation for any crime and notifying federal authorities of all illegal immigrants discovered as a result of such investigations.

Most importantly, provision 6 does not authorize state and local law enforcement agencies to begin enforcing Federal immigration laws on their own. Only after an individual has been "taken into custody", "incarcerated", or is "under investigation" for some other violation of the laws -- applicable to citizen and non-citizen alike -- can an investigation under provision 6 commence, and the only responsibility of state and local authorities have resulting from such investigations is to notify the Federal government that they may have an illegal immigrant in their custody.

However, the "taken into custody" clause of provision 6 could potentially present a problem. With just the usual information that is collected about individuals "taken into custody", is it possible to determine whether they are citizens or non-citizens? (Over to you, Joe Bernstein…). If that initial determination cannot be made, then technically section 6 can't be applied, since law enforcement officials have to already know that the person is a non-citizen for it to activate.

Individuals "incarcerated" or "under investigation", on the other hand, don't present any reasonable problem here. Once someone is under investigation for one crime, any other crimes that they may have committed become fair game for further investigation. (Though I can understand why some Rhode Island public officials might wish to undermine this principle of the law!)

Finally, section 7 applies, again, only to people already tried and convicted by the justice system for some other crime…

7. The Parole Board and the Department of Corrections shall work cooperatively with ICE personnel to provide for the parole and deportation of criminal aliens.